I'm having trouble trying to get the aspect ratio to play properly on my TV.

The files I am working with have subtitles on them. When I encode them and watch them on my computer they look the same as the source video but when I watch them on my TV sometimes the edges of the subs get cut off.

I normally set the encode for:
Source aspect ration - 1:1 (VGA)
Arrange Method - Full screen (keep aspect ration 2)

Is this a problem with my encode set-up or is the burning application (Nero in most cases)changing the mpegs on me?

All TVs have an overscan area where part of the video gets cut off. Since I have a 4:3 TV, I find that this method works best for me. This is for DVD by the way, not VCD.

Video Arrange Method: Center Custom 640x440

This keeps the video in your TV screen along with the subtitles. A bit of warning is that there tends to be a black, warped effect at the left and right sides of your TV. I don't notice it much. If you find a better method, please tell me! :)

And if you have a widescreen TV, I'm not sure what to set since I'm not experienced with that kind of TV.

>This keeps the video in your TV screen along with the subtitles. A bit of warning is that there tends to be a black, warped effect at the left and right sides of your TV. I don't notice it much. If you find a better method, please tell me! :)

That is your T.V.
If it bowing outwards it's called barrel distortion, if it's bowing inwards it's called pin cushion distortion.

Sounds like your T.V. is fubarred to me, cuz you should even need to mess with the arrange settings to see subs.

Your TV can be adjusted to correct these problems. Newer T.V's can be done from the remote using a setup code. Older T.V.'s have the controls in the back.

Even though it is quite simple to do I don't advise taking the cover off your T.V. if you don't know what your doing as the tube carries high voltage and can give you a fair wap.

>Sounds like your T.V. is fubarred to me, cuz you should even need to mess with the arrange settings to see subs.

Should read:
Sounds like your T.V. is fubarred to me, cuz you shouldn't even need to mess with the arrange settings to see subs.

Well before the subs would go below the screen so that's why I needed to set that center custom size. And I have one of those really old TVs, from back in 1998 I think.

Why don't you just adjust the subs, so they are displayed higher rather than messing with the frame size? It's easily done.

It's not the TV. This problem has occured on several TVs I've tried as well as projection screens.

I should clarify that it's the left and right sides of the sub and not the bottom. It only happens when the text extends into the far right or left.

I think it does have something to do with TV safe zones.

I beg to differ, but I have not had this problem on any TV I have. I also own a projector myself and neither does the problem arise there.

There is either a problem with the aspect ratio you are selecting or the subs have not been created correctly. Subs should NEVER be anywhere near the sides of the image. When subs are created they are placed within a certain zone in the image. The subs will NOT or should not be displayed outside of this zone thus preventing overscan problems.

You can easily adjust the subs with the Virtualdub VOBSUB filter. You can resize and move them anywhere you wish within the image. You will then need to frame serve the output to TMPG.

I think Lighthawk is working with fansubs where they're made to be viewed on the computer. That's why they don't bother to make the subs compliant for VCD/DVD. They're hard subs so they cannot be editted in any way (unless you resize the AVI).

I still suggest that you use the center custom size at 640x440. Setting it at 640 will give it that distortion at the sides (the video content won't be distorted, you'll see what I mean if you burn a test copy) but it's hardly noticeable. The subs will definitely be kept onto the screen. As for setting the height at 440, you can leave that as is just in case it does go below the TV screen. Setting it at that will also help to make the video look like it's supposed to and not distorted. You can give it a try and see if it looks nice. Please note that once you convert and view the M2V file on the computer, the video will be in the middle surrounded by black bars all around. On the TV, those black bars won't be visible.

>I still suggest that you use the center custom size at 640x440. Setting it at 640 will give it that distortion at the sides (the video content won't be distorted, you'll see what I mean if you burn a test copy) but it's hardly noticeable.

There should be no distortion at the sides no matter what. That effect is produced by 'YOUR' T.V.

Your T.V. seems to suffering from a combination of blooming and either pin cushion or barrel distortion. The dark borders are causing the sides of the image to bend because of a fault with your T.V.
I have a fair bit of experience with audio and Video equipment and have repaired many a T.V. and Video in the past and have seen this effect many times.
It isn't as noticible on normal images, but if there is a straight edge in an image near the side of the screen you will see the bend.

I doubt you see this effect on the PC monitor.

It shouldn't matter what the internal dimensions of the image are as long as the actual frame size is legal. The player does not concern it self with the actual image dimensions, it is only the output frame size that matters.
You could completely distort the image and have a massive border, but as long as the output frame size remains the same, the player won't care and should play it as normal, albeit the image won't be in the right dimensions.

Really? Well then, is there an appropriate method for keeping in those hard subs that aren't DVD compliant?

could anyone suggest a optimal setting for tmpgenc in converting an avi to play in fullscreen in a tv screen? thanks

I have just bought this "TMPGE" program. I have figured out how to formay a "DivX" file but how do i burn it to cd as a vcd? Thank you

USE NERO

Hi again, I posted this last time. For those of you who didn't read it, here was my post:

Recently, I upgraded to the newest version of ffdshow version October 12, 2004. All my XviD files play in Media Player Classic but when I try to open them up in VdubMOD, it says the decompressor for XviD can't be found and that VFW is needed to view XviD in Vdub. I went in ffdshow and disabled XviD there. Then I went in the VFW configuration menu and enabled XviD. But still, it won't work in Vdub. Why is this?

Here was Ashy's reply:

Just enable everthing in FFDSHOW VFW from XVID to MP41.
No need to disable anything in FFDSHOW first.

----------------------

Well then, I tried Ashy's suggestion but it still won't work. I know for a fact that version August 28, 2004 works in that area but I need to use the Channel Swap option for my audio files and the August version doesn't have that yet. Please note that everything plays fine in MPC, it's just VdubMOD that's not playing them correctly.

Why do you need to use the channel swap option if you are using Media player classic?
Just select the audio track you want from within Media player classic.

If you mean in Virtualdubmod, you can select any audio track you wish also.

Well I found this neat little trick for creating stereo to 5.1 at Doom9 forums and I tried it and it's pretty good. :) So I thought I'd try it again but then when I need to edit some video in Vdub, it says I can't because I don't have VFW even when I had enabled it. But it's the only version that has Channel Swap. If I don't use Channel Swap, the 5.1 channels will be all mixed up.

What do you mean the channels will be mixed up?
If you select 'Direct stream copy' mode for the audio then the audio should remain untouched.

Also do you have a proper AC3 codec installed. Virtualdub or Virtualdubmod needs the 'AC3 ACM decompressor' installed.

I don't have the problem you have. The version of Virtualdubmod I have works just fine with 5.1 audio and FFDSHOW VFW.

> Well I found this neat little trick for creating stereo to 5.1

To be honest that is just a waste of time. If the audio was originally 2 channel you won't gain anything by converting it to 5 channel audio. In fact in my experience the effect is worse as the channels don't decode correctly. Some of the audio channel info seems to be lost and others are too low or higher than they should be.

I have attempted something similar myself and wasn't happy with the results of the conversion. The 2 channel stereo sounded better than the suedo 5.1 audio when played through a Prologic or DD 5.1 amp.

Really? I found one that's done using the method called DPLII Upmixing and it produces fairly good results. It uses the FFDSHOW Audio Decoder in Graphedit and from the audio properties there, I must select the channel swap option. That's what I meant.

Anyway, I find that if I install FFDSHOW version October 12 along with an XviD codec, AVI would open up fine in Vdub. That's weird. I downloaded a codec called Koepi's XviD binary or something like that. Would that work well? I can't seem to find an official XviD codec.

And also to tie in to my problem, the AVI I have has some video errors such as artifacts in black scenes as well as black sweepers where a big mass of black pixels would sweep across the video at times and then it would return to normal. I asked around and other people who has the file is not experiencing that problem which leads me to believe it's a codec issue. Even when I installed that XviD codec, the problems still persists. What can I do to get rid of it? GSpot reports that the FOURCC is xvid and the codec is XviD.

Anyone? I tried unintalling FFDSHOW and only have XVID but it still won't work. When I uninstalled all codecs, the video still plays (surprisingly) but when it got to the part with errors, the video paused while the audio continued and then the video resumed after the errors disappear. :(

I doubt this is a codec error. The file is probably corrupt. Check it with virtualdubmod and it should detect them as bad frames.

Regardless of whether other people have this file and it plays with no problems, the problems could be due to corrupted frames during in the download and if anybody tells you this can't happen they are talking b......t.

It's happened to me plenty times using certain crappy P2P services.

If you really suspect it's a codec issue then download Graphedit, this program is invaluable when you learn how to use it. You can choose any filters you want to open a particular file. Graphedit also builds a visual graph of the filters that are being used to decode the file. This helps in diagnosing problems.
http://www.ogg.cn/Download.php?Go=Software::268&Links=1

Link above doesn't allow direct linking, the link is about 2 thirds down the page at the page below.
http://www.ogg.cn/software/view-software-268.html

Thanks. It is indeed an error. The person who told me there was no problems said today that there is indeed a big error in one scene. :( Oh well...

Hi All,

I have a question. I have a few mpg files I want to demix and than mix again on a dvd project. But it i Demix the file and mix it again without doing anything als the audio and video are out of sync. The longer in the movie the more out of sync.

After Demix I get 2 files:
1 Filename.m1v (44 min and 14 sec)
2 Filename.mp2 (44 min and 12 sec)

Is it normal the audio and video aren't even long ????
And how am i going to get the audio and video back in sync ???

Thanks in advance.

When I try to add files in the set source menu all my avi files are coming up with "Could not open the video part of the file C:path/video.avi Only the audio part could be opened?

Been encoding with TMPGEnc before and haven't had problems now both encoders don't work. Anyone know what the issue here is?

Thanks!!

If you download the Ace Mega Codecs Pack off Kazaa it will enable your TMPGEnc encoder to work

Are you able to play the video using windows media player? Is it a propietory codec? e.g. asf, real video?

I'm having the same problem. Xpress won't open avis encoded with xvid. It will open a few avis I have using Windows media video 9, and of course mpegs. The normal tmpeg will still open the files Xpress won't. I've tried xvid codec from the Cole2k, Ace, and Nero codec packs but nothing works.

I had this problem with tmpgenc 3.0 xpress..... even though i had the following codecs installed: ffdshow, xvid, divx - I could not open ANY xvid AVI into the program. It was extremely frustrating as I had the same setup on my old PC and everything worked.

After some tinkering about I realised it may be FFDShow causing the problem. What I actually did to fix it was to uninstall all of the codecs mentioned above, reboot, and then re-install ONLY the xvid codec - this appears to work fine in tmpgenc xpress now.

hope this helps.

Yetiman

I'm using athlon 64 3.2 - i can load tmpeg but it freezes before encoding starts - works fine on older athlon 2000 machine - can anyone help?

Delete the whole TMPG folder then re-install it.

I like to create DVD's with music videos and giving my DVD an option to randomly play tracks would be awesome. Since I can fit 2 hrs a big part of the time I end up hearing the first 10 songs or so while the ones towards the back gets ignored. Would like to see this option in future releases.

Thanks!

how do I convert RMS real media video file from real player 10 to a VCD so I can watch on a stand alone dvd player. DVD Santa and TmpGenc 2.51 do not support rms. file format.

Don't you mean an RM file? I don't recommend putting them on VCD since RM files are known for their bad quality. However if you must. Go download EO Video. I'm pretty sure it's free. Load your RM file and click start to convert. It takes a while, seriously, it does. In the end, you get an MPG file.

No you don't need that, just download Real alternative and use TMPG.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm

from what I understand, an RMS is not actually just a real movie file, but that would just be a real movie- secure file. I don't don't know if anyone has done a converter for that, the fundamental idea is that you should not be able to do that with those files, I'm going ot have a look, though, and see what I can come up with.

From what I have heard Real Media files are secured so you can't reformat them.
Atleast that's what a friend that works as a support assistant for Starz and Real Networks tells me. I find this hard to believe. I don't think any software is that secure. Thats why I posted this question. I will check out that free codec, and let everyone know how it turned out.

Reply to steve,

I really experience the secured Real Media what you mentioned, it can't be transcode to other format but only can be played.

I discovered this at free-codecs.com, is this legit:
(Link: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/TMPGEnc.htm)

I downloaded the file, it is labeled the "Free" version. no mention of this on the tmpgenc.net or pegasys website. Hope a plus version is forthcoming...

Changes in TMPGEnc 2.524.63.181 :

- The format of the project file and the templet file was modified. Because of that, the project which was drawn up with new version becomes not be able to use with old version.
- With the bit rate calculation tub of project wizard, it tried to be able to appoint DVD-DL to type of media.
- With the MPEG system multiplexer, mux_rate (multiplexing rate) was not average bit rate and it tried to record maximum bit rate. Time to completion of output is shortened because of this.
- It tried to do the indication which in GOP sequence indication with GOP structure of MPEG setting dialogue even with in case of non Closed GOP rule is made MPEG standard.
- Picture quality at the time of long GOP it improved with MPEG-1.
- Encoding quality of the still picture scene it improved.
- MPEG encoding with the GOP structure which consists of only I and the B picture was improved.
- While encoding at the time of multithread operation use, the fact that error occurs rarely was corrected.
- Clicking the cancellation button in the audio codec selective picture of AVI/WAVE output, again, it corrected the fact that the selective picture is indicated.
- When the contents which are already registered to the templet with quantization queue are registered with alias, the fact that it becomes not be able to delete the templet which is registered was corrected.
- When with compilation of quantization queue templet name pushes the deletion button at the time of blank, the fact that memory access violation occurs was corrected.
- When it tries that contents of the file probably will read the file of zero data entirely, the problem which has the fact that it stops resetting long haul control was corrected.
- When the AVI file which is written out with TMPGEnc is played back with WMP with the fact that it comes out the "illegitimate file" was corrected midway.

Yep it's probably legit. Don't know if it'll be the English version though. That is the Jap version. They seem to get the updates before the English ones get it.
http://www.pegasys-inc.com/ja/download/tp.html

Hang on, just checked and it's on the server, but they're not advertising it yet.
http://download.pegasys-inc.com/download_files/TMPGEnc-2.524.63.181-Free.zip

is this version stable? recently im getting lots of crashes when using this.

I captured my videos using the Ulead Media Studio Pro (MSP) video capture software. I edited the videos with MSP, somtimes with Adobe Premier depending on what I need from each (Premier has excellent text overlay and graphic manipulation, while the MSP has fast and clean trim & splice function, and easier to use). I export the videos into AVI files after the task was completed. I then used the Ulead Movie Factory to author the DVD and the DVD Shrink to reduce the file size to fit the whole movie into a single DVD+R disc.

Having said that, has anyone attempted to make a 2 disc DVD set and how is the picture quality? After the DVD Shrink, my video quality was poor but I don't know whether it is from the Ulead Movie Factory, or the DVD Shrink. Anyway, I decided to switch over the TMPGEnc Plus and TMPGEnc DVD Author to check out the picture quality.

Turned out that:

- All of the Adobe Premier AVI files will not be read correctly by TMPGEnc Plus, the m2v files have a black screen rather than the movie. The audio part is fine.
- For any of the AVI files that were made by Ulead MF, or by Adobe Premier but later edited by Ulead MF, then the TMPGEnc will read and process just fine.
- But if I run Ulead then run the TMPGEnc, then do back to do some more with the Ulead, next time using the TMPGEnc, I will get a black screen rather than a movie. Thus after using EMPGEnc, I would have to reboot my laptop before I go back to using the Ulead, and vice versa. Do you have similar problems on your computer?

Thanks in advance
dp

I have a 2.5 hour long program that needs to be on DVD. The program has 13 different AVI files that I've prepared earlier.

I used TMPGEnc Plus to convert the individual AVI files into m2v and wav files (there is a problem with this process, but I'll bring it up on another question). Now I have 26 of those files (both m2v and wav files).

Knowing that once I run the TMPGEnc DVD Author, these files will be combined and turn them into bunch of DVD files (VOB, etc...).

My questions are:
(1) How do I know the total size (of these files) will fit into the DVD before I actually putting the whole set up together? Is this TMPGEnc DVD Author going to compress it into the proper size?
(2) If compression as in question above is possible, then what is your experience in the video picture quality? Have you made any comparison with other DVD authoring software and what is your opinion on the "best" authoring software out there?

I have done the same set of AVI using the Ulead Movie Factory 2.0 and the picture quality was fairly poor after burning it into a DVD+R (single layer). I am not sure if the TMPGEnc will fare better in the picture quality department. The only thing I noticed so far was that TMPGEnc tended to process it at a much slower pace, required different software to do different thing.

Thanks in advance for your input.

dp

If you have no problems with converting files to M2V using constant bitrate, you can do this method. I find that it works best for me.

Go here for a free Java-based bitrate calculator:
http://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm

Use a normal calculator and add up the length of all of your AVIs that you plan to put onto the DVD-R. Add them all up and then add around 5-10 minutes extra (to ensure that it fits on one DVD-R). Input that time into the bitrate calculator at the top. It doesn't matter if it's in hours or minutes, you can even input it as 120 minutes or 160 minutes. For your audio bitrate, the standard is 384. If you have any 6-channel audio, select 448.

At the bottom where it says "Calculated Bitrate" and the box is in green, record that number. Open TMPGEnc and then open your video file. Go to settings and set the "Rate Control Mode" to "Constant Bitrate". Then right below that, enter your recorded number. You should set this to all the files you are going to encode! Then input them one by one as you normally do in TMPGEnc DVD Authoring and author. It will fit as long as you did everything correctly.

The only disadvantage is that the quality degrades if you have a lot of video. For me, the maximum I can do is around 5 half-hour video content. I can put 7 half-hour video content if it's animation.

If anybody has a better method, please share! :)

I made a mpg from an avi file and burned it to VCD using VCDEasy. The film has some text in it, and some of the text is clipped when it plays on a dvd screen. Is there a way to make a "border" of grey or black space around the mpg so that it will make the original display a bit smaller, but completely?

I see that there is a "clip" feature, but I think that does the opposite of what I want to do.

Positioning Methode Center (Custom size)

That's the Trick, but i suggest to use AVISynth or VirtualDub for the Resizing.

Thank you. Would I need to make the custom size larger or smaller to effectively shrink the picture and leave a "border" area. (I suppose I could just experiement.)

- Fred